On May 17, 2011, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced an eighteen month extension of Temporary Protected Status for Haitian nationals. TPS generally prevents deportation/removal. However if a person is subject to removal for a criminal conviction, they still can be removed. This is a very interesting tension.
First, its wonderful news for Haitians that have done nothing wrong and simply are escaping the horrible conditions in their country. However, our country is exacerbating the country conditions by removing convicted criminals to a country that doesn't need more strife. Finally, this move by DHS shows that, as an executive branch agency, they are not subject to the Congressional process and can act unilaterally. This is important to understand because as President Obama talks about immigration reform, his agency does not do anything about it. There are administrative remedies available (as we saw by the leeked memorandum from last August). Our government simply doesn't exercise its discretion primarily (in my personal opinion) because its election time and no one seeking election really wants to align themselves on the immigrants side of the "illegal immigrant problem."
Immigration reform is complicated and is forever changing. It is going to take some time but have faith, I am sure that in time we will come up with the much needed solutions to our immigration issues.
Posted by: immigrationissues.com | 06/05/2011 at 11:17 AM